But alas! this knowledge of her want of merit was still insufficient to support me under the weight of her dying malediction. Methinks, undeserved as it was by me, her curse still hangs over my head, and sooner or later I shall experience its effects.—My children, I must here break off for a few moments—Dreadful emotions overpower me: I am unable to proceed! * * * * * Edith possest still more information respecting Count Ethelbert’s family. She knew, that by some means or other the news of Lucretia’s sufferings had at length reached her son in Italy; but sunk in voluptuousness and totally engrossed by his libertine pursuits, he had delayed from day to day the hastening to succour his imprisoned mother. At length he arrived at Ravenstein, and demanded the liberty of her, whose bones were already mouldering among the ruins of the half-burnt Castle. The reflection—“_hadst thou come sooner, she had been saved_,”—drove him almost frantic, and in the violence of his despair he committed the most inhuman outrages. The whole garrison of the fortress was sacrificed to the shade of Lucretia; the remaining towers of the Castle were converted into her funeral pile, and were consumed to ashes! He was informed, that the unfortunate Urania (whom he, as well as his mother accused of having caused all these misfortunes) had once been an inmate of those walls; and he foamed with rage at not finding her still there, that he might have sacrificed _her_ also to his hatred and revenge! The inhabitants of the tranquil vale of Frutiger, to whom I had formerly been indebted for my rescue, did not escape without feeling the weight of his fury. _They_ too suffered for the dilatoriness, with which he had fulfilled his duty to an unfortunate mother; a crime, which he punished in those guiltless people, but of which he could accuse no one justly but himself. Every one fled before the raging Donat, whose cruelties were supported by a strong army composed of his Italian vassals. He now was advancing towards the place of our abode by rapid marches, though no one yet knew, against whom in particular his fury would be directed. We trembled at his approach, for our feuds with Count Ethelbert had greatly diminished our strength, and we were ill-prepared for encountering troops so fresh and numerous, as those which accompanied our new enemy. Neither was Ethelbert without his fears. He imagined with no small probability, that his son was coming to demand the blood of his mother at his hands; and he was himself already engaged in a contest with the Count Venosta, whose military prowess supplied the deficiency of numbers in his army. Nothing could save both us and him, but an union of our forces against the common enemy; and now it was, that I was compelled to place myself in a situation, than which no other could ever have entailed on me even half such misery.